Pasty stain removers have found acceptance as compared with liquid stain removers, because they allow an edgeless removal of stains. Pasty stain removers are filled into tubes and are taken out of the tubes in portions. When doing so make sure that the tube is carefully closed again after having taken the stain remover out of the tube, because the liquid solvent contained in the stain remover would otherwise evaporate and the paste would thus be dried up. However, paste stain removers also dry up, even if this rule is observed, because the formation of hair cracks in the tube casing cannot be avoided, when the tube emptied in portions is rolled up and the solvent also evaporates through these hair cracks.
The filling of the pasty stain remover into an aerosol bottle is a possibility to take a pasty stain remover out of a storage bin in portions without risking the evaporation of the solvent. However, aerosol bottles do not always enjoy general popularity, because the expanding agent contained in the same develops a considerable pressure and because higher temperatures must be strictly avoided and operating instructions such as an exact distance of the aerosol bottle to the garment to be cleaned must be observed when spraying on. The problem of the incorporation in portions of a stain remover in liquid form seems to be already solved. It is known to fill liquid stain removers in portions into glass ampoules being surrounded by a plastics casing having a wick at one end. The glass ampoule is broken within the plastics casing so that the contents can penetrate into the wick and can be applied from there onto the stain to be removed. However, the plastics covering is not always completely safe so that there is the danger that small glass splinters will issue and injuries will result.
A device for the incorporation in portions of a preferably pasty stain remover is suggested in the German Patent Application No. P 24 30 146.0 U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,190 to myself issued on Nov. 23, 1976) in which the disadvantages of the former packing of pasty stain removers and also the deficiencies of the known packing in portions of liquid stain removers are avoided due to the fact that the stain remover is enclosed in capsules being deformable under the influence of pressure, which are preferably inserted individually into receiving recesses of a receiving plate and are covered by a covering film covering said receiving plate.
An easily deformable plastics is preferably used as material for the capsules, the capsules having suitably the shape of bottles. Advantageously a weakened area is provided at the bottleneck which makes it possible to either twist off the bottle neck or to separate it easily in another way.
According to the German Patent Application No. P 25 05 060.6 (U.S. application Ser. No. 638,965 filed Dec. 8, 1975 by myself) the problem is solved additionally to this suggestion to propose a method according to which the pasty stain remover can be filled into the capsules, i.e. which only creates the prerequisites for the use of the device according to the German Patent Application No. P 24 30 146.0.
When solving this problem one already encountered difficulties with regard to the selection of the capsule material.
The plastics films offering themselves for the production of capsules are generally not suited for the packing of pasty stain removers. Stain removers must contain solvents for the stains to be removed, which contain mostly fat. If the stain removers are to have a versatile field of application, hydrocarbons or chlorinated hydrocarbons are used as solvent, which constitute up to 64 percent of the paste. However, these solvents attack the plastics offering themselves for the production of capsules, and cause their swelling and diffusing.
There are of course plastics which can resist the attack of such hydrocarbons or chlorinated hydrocarbons, however, the production and further processing of these plastics is much too expensive so that they cannot be used for a mass product like stain remover capsules.
Gelatine is already known as capsule material for the packing of chemical products, in particular of pharmaceutical products and medicaments. But gelatine is also not suited in general for the packing of pasty stain removers into capsules. Since pasty stain removers have low molecular alcohols, gelatine is dissolved by such alcohols, however such alcohols can at least diffuse to the exterior through the gelatine capsules, whereby the composition of the pasty stain remover is changed in an inadmissible manner.
Stain removers are of course known which do not contain any alcohols, however, the application spectrum of such stain removers is extremely limited so that they have found little acceptance in practice.
For solving the problem on which the German Patent Application No. P 25 05 060.6 is based one had to match or select the composition of the stain remover in such a manner that the capsule material is not attacked by the stain removers or components thereof or that components of the stain remover cannot diffuse through the capsule material.
Only if these requirements were complied with, was it possible to preserve the effectiveness of the pasty stain remover, even if it was packed in capsules being deformable by the influence of pressure.
According to the proposal of the German Patent Application P 25 05 060.6 gelatine is used as capsule material and a fundamentally water-free composition of the pasty stain remover is selected avoiding to a very great extent a portion of low molecular alcohols.
The composition of the pasty stain remover is preferably selected as follows, if gelatine is used as capsule material:
cyclohexanol -- 5% to 7% PA0 isopropanol -- 0% to 3% PA0 toluene -- 15% to 25% PA0 1,2-dichloroethane -- 0% to 20% PA0 1,1,1-trichloroethane -- 40% to 65% PA0 perfume -- 0% to 0.5% PA0 powdery solid matter -- 6% to 10%
The used solid matter is present in grain sizes between 5 millimicrons and 150 microns.